Television

What’s On Sunday

By KATHRYN SHATTUCK

June 29, 2014

10 P.M. (HBO) THE LEFTOVERS Three years after 2 percent of the world’s population suddenly disappeared on Oct. 14, for no discernible reason — Was it an act of God? A natural phenomenon? — the residents of the fictional Mapleton, N.Y., are still searching for answers in this dystopian series created by Tom Perrotta, adapted from his novel, and Damon Lindelof, a mastermind behind ABC’s “Lost.” Churches have closed while cults have formed, including the Guilty Remnant, whose followers wear white, take a vow of silence and chain smoke. One member is Laurie (Amy Brenneman), the mother of Jill (Margaret Qualley), a high schooler, and Tom (Chris Zylka), who has joined another cult led by a man who claims that he can hug the pain out of people. Laurie is also the wife of Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux, the town’s chief of police, above, speaking with Amanda Warren), whose colleagues worry that he may be losing his mind as he tries to maintain order. The show “may never explain what happened to the people who disappeared, but the measure of its worth is that it may not have to,” Alessandra Stanley wrote in The New York Times. “As with any good drama, the mystery lies in human nature more than in the supernatural. Once the show gets going, and it takes more than one episode to do so, ‘The Leftovers’ bores into the characters and the fissures that crack their community so astutely that the cause is almost secondary.”

10 A.M. (ABC) THIS WEEK George Stephanopoulos interviews President Obama.

10 A.M. (Fox) FOX NEWS SUNDAY Representatives Bob Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, and Xavier Becerra, Democrat of California, discuss House Speaker John A. Boehner’s plan to sue the Obama administration for its use of executive actions.

10:30 A.M. (NBC) MEET THE PRESS In an interview taped at the 2014 Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Denver last week, former President Bill Clinton discusses income inequality and economic mobility, as well as the situation in Iraq.

10:30 A.M. (CBS) FACE THE NATION Senators Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, and John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, debate the situation in Iraq.

8 P.M. (BET) THE BET AWARDS 2014 Lionel Richie is honored for lifetime achievement at this ceremony celebrating excellence in entertainment and sports by African-Americans and members of other minority groups. Chris Tucker hosts the live broadcast from the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, which pays tribute this year to the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Reporting from the red carpet starts at 6; an after-party follows at 11:30.

9 P.M. (CBS) RECKLESS This new crime melodrama pits a newly appointed city attorney (Cam Gigandet, left) in Charleston, S.C., against a Northern transplant (Anna Wood). “That is supposed to inject an opposites-attract sexual tension into the show, which — its biggest cliché of all — is going for ‘sultry’ (since this is the South) but doesn’t achieve it,” Neil Genzlinger wrote in The Times. “There isn’t a flicker of sexual chemistry between Mr. Gigandet and Ms. Wood or among any of the other actors who are pretending to be all hot and bothered here.”

10:30 P.M. (13, 49) VICIOUS Ian McKellen, below, and Derek Jacobi portray Freddie and Stuart, lovers who have shared a London apartment for 49 years, and whose snark is on flamboyant display as they peck away at each other and their tidy circle. This British sitcom begins as the couple host a wake — light on the food, heavy on the insults — to commemorate the death of a dear friend, while speculating on the sexuality of their upstairs neighbor (Iwan Rheon) as he fends off the advances of their predatory bestie (Frances de la Tour). “Vicious” “has received criticism in Britain for trading in campy gay stereotypes, and it would be hard to argue that it doesn’t,” Mike Hale wrote in The Times. “But what’s more interesting about the show — which is written by an American, Gary Janetti, whose primary credits are ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘Family Guy’ — is what an amazing simulacrum it is of a half-century of unsubtle, off-color, formulaic, wink-wink British TV. Mr. McKellen and Mr. Jacobi may be enacting gay clichés, but they’re doing it in the larger service of keeping alive a particular style of comedy.” KATHRYN SHATTUCK